The Observer, Volume L, Issue 22, 3/22/19

the

Case Western Reserve University volume L, issue 22 friday, 3/22/2019

Observer

See where CWRU ranks 2020 U.S. News & World Report graduate, professional school rankings released

Students build clean water pipeline

Katharine Toledo Staff Reporter

On March 12, U.S. News & World Report, on their site referred to as “the global authority in education rankings,” released their 2020 rankings for Graduate and Professional Schools across the United States.

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School remained 9th for social work programs across the country.

“The school has been a leader in social work education for over 100 years. The ranking is a testament to the consistently high quality of our degree program, the scholarship of the faculty, and the excellent work done by our alumni across the nation,” said Grover C. Gilmore, the dean of the Mandel School. He cited a social work minor and study abroad courses that opened up opportunities for undergraduates to work with the faculty.

The medical school was ranked as the 24th best research medical school nationwide. Previously, they had been ranked at 25th for the past three years.

“This honor further confirms our school as innovators in medical education, leaders in life-saving biomedical research and a force for improving health in our community,” said Dean Pamela B. Davis of the medical school.

When discussing the upcoming shifts in the medical school, Davis stated, “This

spring, as our university program moves into the Health Education Campus together with our Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine program and Case Western Reserve’s nursing and dental schools, we will be in an even better position to extend our national leadership in interprofessional education.”

Dean Venkataramanan Balakrishnan of the Case School of Engineering, which dropped from 50th to 52nd this year, said, “It’s important to note that while our ranking did slip a few spots— which is certainly disappointing—our overall score actually went up. And our peer-assessment score—which reflects our reputation among other top engineering schools—also increased. The U.S. News methodology is complex, and while the end result this year was not what we’d hoped for, the increases in these areas are encouraging. We have several initiatives in the works to enhance our research enterprise and we are optimistic that this will help boost our rankings in the next few years.”

The law school fell six spots from last year, placing them at 71st. Breaking down how U.S. News and World Report ranks the schools, the co-deans of the law school, Jessica Berg and Michael Scharf pointed out that the ranking was unclear and inconsistent. First, there was no school ranked at 65th this year, the School of Law’s previous rank, but rather a group ranked at 67th and then

another group ranked at 71st.

The deans said, “Our movement seems to be the result of a couple of schools moving up in the rankings and shifting things around us.” Second, they pointed out that the Bar exam pass rate had improved from last year, they had improved their employment rate and their median LSAT and GPA had stayed consistent with last year.

Finally, they suggested that prospective students read a diverse set of magazines that ranked law schools.

For example, PreLaw Magazine, which ranks individual specialties within law schools gave the law school an A+ in Health Law, an A+ in International Law, an A+ in IP Law, an A in Business Law, and an A- in Public Interest Law. These rankings are based on the objective criteria including number of courses, number of professors, number of clinics, concentrations, moot court success, having a journal and hosting programs in each specialty area.

Weatherhead School of Management rose eight spots since last year, placing them at 22nd this year. However the full-time Master of Business Administration degree was 77th in 2018, 55th in 2019 and is ranked at 74th in 2020.

The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing has two programs that are ranked: the Masters and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degrees. They stand at 16th and 13th, respectively, this year.

This past week, engineering students affiliated with the Humanitarian Design Corps (HDC) at Case Western Reserve University spent their spring break traveling to Costa Rica to continue their involvement with the province of Guanacaste through the development of a water pipeline that will greatly improve the community’s quality of life.

HDC, a part of the organization Engineers Without Borders (EWB), helps to advance both the learning experiences of its participants and the development of the world by encouraging its participants to consider worldwide issues such as clean water, sanitation and sustainability and educating them on these issues.

While the HDC is affiliated with the EWB, a national organization, HDC has more flexibility in selecting projects and commitments that are valuable to its students. The work of HDC in Costa Rica is only one of three international projects; students are also currently working on initiatives in Malawi and the Dominican Republic.

The HDC became involved with the province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica through Kurt Rhoads, an associate professor of civil engineering at CWRU. The Costa Rica initiative, which began in July 2016, has consisted of three different trips to the Latin American country since the project’s launch in January 2017. The pipeline itself was created in March 2018, but the HDC team returned to Costa Rica over spring break in order to repair issues with the pipe’s infrastructure, test the water quality and add length to the pipeline with the purpose of tracking and evaluating the amount of water consumed by the village.

The organization’s work is particularly important because of its interdisciplinary nature: in addition to the engineering components of the project, the students involved in Costa Rica were compelled to combine their foreign language skills with their work on the pipeline. While many of the students did not speak Spanish, they acquired language skills along the way that helped them to communicate with the residents of Guanacaste, many of whom housed the students working on the pipeline.

Even after the Costa Rica pipeline is completed, the HDC hopes to continue to be involved with the residents of the village. Throughout their time in Costa Rica, students in the group have become close to their hosts and maintain social media relationships with the residents.

News

A&E

Opinion

Sports

pg. 4 NYT columnist speaks at CWRU

pg. 8 Steven Wright visits Cleveland

pg. 10 Money in college admissions

pg. 15 Baseball’s offense thrives

Courtesy of Flickr/Denacipriano The School of Law, pictured above, fell to 71st in the rankings. Other graduate programs rose in the rankings.

Lev Pearlman

Contributing Reporter

news CWRU researchers work to analyze “signaling language” in sexual assault cases Virginia Behmer Staff Reporter

Researchers from the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences (MSASS) have received a $715,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

This grant will fund their project to use artificial intelligence to find signaling-language patterns in police reports included in Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs, also known as “rape kits”).

This is an expansion on their original project of evaluating untested SAKs from Cuyahoga County.

The Begun Center is made up of 50 people from MSASS. According to their website, they have a mission of “social justice and community development by conducting applied, community-based and interdisciplinary research on the causes and prevention of violence, and by educating and training social workers, teachers, law enforcement and other professionals in the principles of effective violence prevention.”

The center currently has a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), where individuals from MSASS along with the Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Kit Task Force are committed to evaluating untested kits in Cuyahoga County.

This was the original project at hand for Rachel Lovell, principal investigator and senior research associate with the Begun Center, and her team. Both DNA evidence and police reports are being evaluated from over 6,300 SAKs from the years 19932009.

“The idea for the [NIJ] grant came out of the project,” said Lovell. “In reading a lot of those [police reports] we noticed early on that there was very blatant victim blaming and doubting of what the victim was saying.”

Reporting officers of the assault are often those who write the original report. Reports are then used by potential detectives and prosecutors depending on how the case proceeds, so these reports hold inordinate amounts of power.

Such “signaling language” used in police reports can affect survivors’ experience and credibility, how the

case is handled by future law enforcement and court case proceedings. According to Lovell, most officers writing the reports for the assaults are not trained in handling trauma and often seem “confused by victims’ behavior.”

The current project, funded with the $715,000 grant, utilizes machine learning technology to track and compile patterns in signaling language in police reports.

“I think this is a case for how open data can help in ways people might not expect,” said Misty Luminais, a senior research associate with the Begun Center also working on the project. “Without the access we’ve been given, we couldn’t have dreamt of proposing such work.”

Cities around the country have embarked on examining their backlog of untested SAKs, and according to Lovell, “Cleveland is not unique nationally.”

“When sexual assault kits were first collected, DNA wasn’t around or available,” Lovell said. DNA was also very expensive and often took years to process. As such, only certain SAKs were processed according

to many provisions, including if perpetrators were strangers or if survivors wanted to prosecute.

“As researchers, we thrive on data, but we also have a responsibility to do work that positively impacts the world we live in. Partnerships such as these can demonstrate how researchers are woven into their communities, not just outside, disinterested observers,” said Luminais.

The team knows “the power of words” and recognizes that their research is groundbreaking, as a small amount of similar research has been done. They see future projects stemming from this one, including possible opportunities to inform police report writing training in reporting officers.

“One of the most exciting implications I see for this project [is to] go beyond the criminal justice realm and pushes the envelope on how research will be conducted in the social sciences going forward,” Luminais said.

“This approach allows us to leverage the nuance of qualitative data with the wide scope of quantitative data to truly capture the strengths of both approaches. In the future, I hope to see numbers enhanced by narrative.”

Think summer and plan for success!

Think Summer 2019

summer.case.edu

Course registration opens soon!

Registration begins: March 25 for graduate students April 1 for undergraduate students April 9 for for visiting and non-degree students Tuition for courses numbered 100-399 is half the price of fall and spring semesters Summer Session 2019 May Term: 8-week session: 5-week session: 4-week session (1): 6-week session: 4-week session (2):

May 13 – May 31 June 3 – July 29 June 3 – July 5 June 3 – June 28 June 17 – July 29 July 8 – August 2

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Prominent Arab-Israeli conflict scholar speaks on campus Nathan Lesch Staff Reporter On Tuesday night, in the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Community Studies Center, Mouin Rabbani spoke to Case Western Reserve University students and University Circle community members about “Israel, Zionism and Anti-Semitism.”

Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, argued that anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-Semitism, meaning Israel’s actions toward the Palestinian people can and should be criticized.

The Institute for Palestine Studies was established in Beirut, Lebanon in 1963 as “a private, independent, non-profit Arab institute unaffiliated with any political organization or government.” Since its founding, the Institute for Palestinian Studies has grown to become a widely respected source for information regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Rabbani has been a senior fellow with the institute since 2008 and has been published in numerous journals and newspapers over the last decade.

Rabbani began at 5:30 p.m. with a historical account of the Zionist movement, highlighting that Zion-

ism was not universally accepted by all Jewish people.

“The first anti-Zionists were European Jews,” Rabbani said.

Early Jewish anti-Zionists were

concerned that Zionism would create a “super-ghetto” in Palestine and cause an anti-Semitic backlash in Europe.

Rabbani then discussed the support

Grace Howard/Observer Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institue of Palestine Studies, spoke about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Community Studies Center.

for Zionism from anti-Semitic and nationalistic factions, such as Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann and British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.

Throughout this part of his lecture, Rabbani stressed that anti-Zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism and that anti-Semitism refers to xenophobia towards all Jewish people.

According to Rabbani, “AntiSemitism is prejudice, discrimination against Jews, all Jews.”

These clarifications helped set up Rabbani’s overarching point that Israel should be criticized for its discriminatory treatment of the Palestinian people and unlawful expansion into the West Bank. Rabbani compared the Israeli regime to repressive settler colony regimes in Africa: “[The] charge sheet against Israel is politically indistinguishable from those against South Africa and Rhodesia,” said Rabbani.

Rabbani also stressed that antiSemitism is unacceptable and evidence of it in criticism of Zionism should be denounced.

Rabbani’s lecture was hosted by the political science department, the Radical Student Union, SPARC, the University Media Board and the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies.

Controversial heartbeat bill enters Ohio House of Representatives

Grace Howard News Editor

On Tuesday, March 19, Senate Bill 23, a bill that would ban abortions after a heartbeat is detected in the fetus, had its first hearing in the Ohio House of Representatives with the Health Committee. Senate Bill 23, sponsored

by Sen. Kristina Roegner, a Republican from Hudson serving her first term in Ohio Senate after four terms in the Ohio House, would prohibit the abortion of an unborn child with a detectable heartbeat and establish a joint legislative committee on adoption promotion and support.

If passed, this bill would enact one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, as it could ban abortions as early as six weeks into the pregnancy, potentially before a woman is aware of her pregnancy. An amendment proposed by Democratic state Sen. Nickie Antonio would account for instances of rape, incest or mental health on the part of the woman, however, the amendment failed in the senate. State Sen. Sandra Williams sponsored an amendment that would demand health insurance coverage for maternity services if the mother is mandated to carry the child by the state of Ohio, but it also failed.

The bill would penalize doctors for unlawfully conducting an abortion as a fifth-degree felony, with exceptions only if the procedure was done to prevent the death of the pregnant woman, if the pregnancy

risked impairment of the bodily functions or in the case of a medical emergency. There would be no exceptions made for instances of rape or incest, because as Roegner explained, all lives are equally protected under the law, including those of unborn fetuses.

In the health committee meeting on Tuesday, Democrat Rep. Janine Boyd asked Roegner how the bill would protect pregnant women.

Roegner made the point that for rapists and human traffickers, “the abortion wipes away that act, and evidence it happened.” Thus the pregnancy serves as proof that a crime occurred, rather than an abortion which can be used to conceal the crime. This point was reiterated later in the hearing by Jessica Warner, director of legislative affairs at Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion interest group with the mission to end abortion in Ohio.

Democratic Rep. Allison Russo brought up an instance where a 12year old girl experienced rape and incest and became pregnant and wondered how this bill would afford this young girl equal protection under the law. Roegner answered that submitting this young girl to such an invasive procedure as an abortion would be wrong and explained that the situation could be resolved by working with the adoption committee this bill would establish.

The health committee included many witness testimonies, including testimony by Christina Hagan, a Republican member of the Ohio

House of Representatives in the 50th district from 2011-2018. Hagan claimed that “a mother’s womb has become the most dangerous place in America for a baby to be” and that “the American womb is almost 160 times more dangerous than the most dangerous cities in the world.”

Hagan is very much in support of the bill and warned that “infaticide is alive and well in our country.”

Warner addressed why Ohio Right to Life is only supporting this bill now and had not supported it the previous two times it had passed onto the governor’s desk, when Gov.

John Kasich vetoed it, because the “Supreme Court is the most prolife court seen in generations.” The passage of various bills like this across the country suggest that antiabortion activists will eventually try for the overturning of Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court. Gov. Mike Dewine has promised that if the bill makes it to his desk, he will sign it.

Over the next few weeks, more hearings will occur in the Ohio House of Representatives on the issue of Senate Bill 23. These hearings can be streamed online and are also open to the public.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons The Health Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives debated SB 23 on Tuesday, March 13. The bill has already passed the Ohio State Senate.

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3/22/19

Forward Thinking campaign surpasses fundraising goal Abbey Wells Staff Reporter

Case Western Reserve University’s Forward Thinking capital campaign has raised $1.82 billion in gifts and pledges, greatly surpassing its original goal. Starting in 2011, the campaign originally aimed to raise $1 billion over the next five years, but the goal was adjusted to $1.5 billion in 2014.

Forward Thinking was the university’s first campaign since 1994.

“The success of this campaign reflects the exceptional generosity of

Case Western Reserve’s supporters,” President Barbara Snyder said, “as well as the compelling research and education that takes place at our university every day. I thank those supporters for their contributions, and the faculty, staff and students who so inspired them.”

Approximately 60,000 donors contributed to the campaign. The supporters included approximately 46,000 alumni and 34,000 first time donors to the university.

One major benefactor, the late Tinkham Veale II, gave a $20 million gift to the campaign, which started the

construction of the Tinkham Veale University Center. Other donors include Capital Campaign Chair Frank Linsalata and his wife, Jocelyne, who donated to undergraduate scholarships, the Linsalata Alumni Center and the Tinkham Veale University Center.

An additional $393 million in contributions from other donors allowed for the construction and renovation of projects including the Health Education Campus with the Cleveland Clinic, the Maltz Performing Arts Center, the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears think[box] in the Richey-Mixon

Building and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

Additionally, donations to the campaign helped fund 98 endowed professorships. Considered to be among the highest honors for faculty, the professorships help to both attract and retain top academics.

The campaign also succeeded in increasing scholarship support by raising almost $254 million in gifts and pledges. A mini-campaign is expected to be created at some point in the future as the campaign remains an objective for the university.

Author, journalist Timothy Egan gives talk Anna Giubileo Staff Reporter

We are storytelling people. This is the message author Timothy Egan shared during his visit to Case Western Reserve University on March 19 as a part of the Writers Center Stage series.

An award-winning author of eight books, Egan has a long history in journalism and is an opinion columnist for the New York Times.

Egan’s early life helped to set him up on the path to becoming an author.

Growing up in a poor Irish Catholic family, his mother worked to instill in him a passion for reading and writing from a young age. It was through writing he found his ticket to see the world.

“I had no money, no connections, nothing. Journalism was a way I could go out and explore the world,” Egan shared.

Egan stays true to his roots and his love for travel by doing all of the research for his books himself.

“I put myself into the shoes of my characters so that I can bring them to life,” Egan said. “A graduate student couldn’t do that for me. Some of the things I find are soul stirring.”

The room had a mix of students from many different interests, ranging from

physical sciences, social sciences and the humanities. Egan spoke directly to the students, stating that no matter what they do in life, they need to be able to write.

He explained that our society is based around the stories we tell and how

Courtesy of Twitter New York Times columnist Timothy Egan visited campus on March 19 as part of the Writers Center Stage series.

we tell them. “Ireland understands that, they have statues all around honoring writers.”

Egan also added bits of humor to his answers. When asked about the editing process for his opinion column, he said, “Most editors are morons. But you still want to keep them on your good side, because they’re the final barrier between you and your intended audience.”

The conversation then ended on discussions about his column and the polarizing world of opinions. Egan’s column generally focuses on topics that cause contention between different groups—ranging from analyses of political figures to global events.

In a world as divided and opinionated as ours has become, Egan shared the sentiment he keeps in mind when writing: “You do not change someone’s opinion by argument. You change it by storytelling.”

The Writers Center Stage has two author visits left. Lynda Barry will be visiting on April 16, and Jennifer Egan on May 1.

International Honor Society inducts CWRU researcher into hall of fame Nihal Manjila Staff Reporter

This year, a Case Western Reserve University nurse researcher will be inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (Sigma) Researcher Hall of Fame. Joachim Voss is a professor at CWRU’s Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and director of the Sarah Cole Hirsh Institute for Evidence-Based Practice. In addition to his position as an educator and administrator, he is also committed to research and education at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Sigma is an international nonprofit organization and the second largest nursing organization in the world. It was founded in 1922 and has over 135,000 members worldwide in over 90 countries. Sigma’s members are organized into more than 530 chapters at over 700 institutions. It has the stated mission of “advancing world health and celebrating nursing excellence in scholarship, leadership, and service.” One of the ways through which Sigma pursues its mission is to recognize noteworthy nurse researchers who have made significant contributions to the field and the treatment of patients by way of a Hall of Fame. This year’s Hall of Fame awards

will be the 10th such event.

Voss has an impressive academic record and career. He is a Fulbright Scholar and earned his Ph.D. in 2003 from the University of California, San Francisco.

He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and conducted research on fatigue and mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer and HIV patients at the University of Washington. He also serves as a mentor for the Afya Bora Consortium, a partnership between U.S. and African universities to provide practical skills and training for health leaders and involvement with other organizations to improve global health.

Voss is one of only 23 nurse researchers being inducted internationally this year. He will join 176 past inductees in the Hall of Fame. His part in important research and advancement of the nursing field, as well as his emphasis on better training for leaders in health-related fields to better treat patients and improve overall health, led to his induction. Other inductees this year are from Sweden, Canada, Australia and the United States.

According to Marilyn Lotas, Ph.D., a professor at the School of Nursing and president of the Alpha Mu Chapter of Sigma, CWRU has had other researchers inducted, including Drs. May Wykle, Joyce Fitzpatrick and Shirley Moore.

Jaclene Zauzniewski, Ph.D., will also

be inducted alongside Voss.

The formal induction ceremony will take place in July in Calgary, Alberta, Canada at Sigma’s 30th International

Nursing Research Congress. Voss will there receive a crystal award for his contributions to research and sit on a discussion panel.

Courtesy of University of Washington Joachim Voss, a professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, will be inducted into a reasearchers’ hall of fame in July.

fun

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fun page | 5

Ken Ken

The aim of the puzzle is to fill the whole grid with numbers. The only numbers you are allowed to use are 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. No number may repeat in a column or a row. Each “cage” (or a shaded box) contains a target number and the arithmetic method needed to be used to obtain the target number.

Easy

Difficult

Horoscopes Horoscopes as dating apps

Aries Bumble Taurus Tinder Gemini OkCupid Cancer Hinge Leo Christian Mingle

Sudoku Normal

Virgo Grindr Libra Jdate Scorpio SCRUFF

Easy

Difficult

Sagittarius FarmersOnly. com Capricorn EastMeetEast Aquarius PlentyOfFish Pisces LinkedIn

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If you would like to write, take photos, or serve on the public relations committee, email us at observer@case.edu.

arts & entertainment Poetry for people who hate poetry Dave Lucas

Dave Lucas is the author of “Weather” which received the 2012 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. In 2018, he was appointed the second Poet Laureate of the State of Ohio.

He lives in Cleveland.

“Rhymes can make sense of the world in a way that regular speech can’t.”

Hip hop mogul Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) says it better than I can.

It’s no coincidence that someone who built a career in rhymes argues so persuasively about the persuasive force of rhyme.

“Think about it,” he writes in his memoir, “Decoded.” “O.J. Simpson might be a free man today because ‘glove don’t fit’ rhymed with ‘acquit,’” recalling defense attorney Johnnie Cochran’s famous couplet. “That’s the power of rhymes.”

Simpson’s ongoing legal problems hardly diminish Jay-Z’s claim: the sonic phenomenon of rhyme carries rhetorical force. As Cochran well knew.

As did the Republicans urging Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in 1952, hoping their slogan—”I Like Ike”—would convince the General and voters alike.

And as the schoolyard bards who discovered that my surname rhymes perfectly with “mucus” also knew, all too well.

Rhyme can convince the mind of what the ear already knows.

We know that children improvise rhymes spontaneously as they explore and invent language. As we come into speech, the sounds around us begin to make sense, and we begin to sound out our own versions of them.

Recall the stubborn baby brother in “A Christmas Story,” rhyming over his dinner instead of eating it: “Meatloaf, smeatloaf, / Double-beatloaf. / I hate meatloaf.”

So rhyme can make sense and make fun. It helps us remember and—as advertisers hope—keeps us from forgetting.

Rhymes can be profound—“womb” / “tomb”—or silly—“If called by a panther, / Don’t anther” (Ogden Nash).

So why, someone will ask, doesn’t poetry rhyme anymore?

I never know how to anther—err— answer. I say that it still does or that it never did. I say: some poetry rhymed, and some still does. Or I try to change the subject.

Courtesy of pixabay

Rhyme is a linguistic coincidence, an accident of corresponding vowel sounds and end consonants. That loveable accident has come into and fallen out of fashion several times in the thousand or so years of English-language poetry.

The earliest Old English poems (think “Beowulf,” circa A.D. 700-1000) use alliteration as a structuring principle.

Rhyme emerges in English poetry only by the early 12th century, with the influence of Medieval Latin and French.

So you can thank the conquering Normans indirectly for Geoffrey Chaucer’s couplet: “Spek, sweete bryd, I noot not where thou art. / This Nicholas anon let fle a fart.” (Whether we can thank Chaucer for the wisdom that “whoever smelt it / dealt it” is another matter.)

As we have seen, Shakespeare’s sonnets rhyme schematically, but his blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) sets the stage for hundreds more years of English dramatic and narrative poetry.

Rhyme endured in songs and lyric poems, sneaking on stage every so often to close out a scene.

By the time John Milton writes his prefatory note to the second edition of “Paradise Lost” in 1674, he dismisses rhyme as “the invention of a barbarous age,” arguing that the “jingling sound of like endings” is a kind of “modern bondage.”

Milton always was a bit grandiose.

Forty years later, in his “Essay on Criticism”, Alexander Pope used his own rhyming couplets to mock the clichéd “like endings” of lesser poets: Where’er you find ‘the cooling western breeze,’ In the next line, it ‘whispers through the trees’: If ‘crystal streams with pleasing murmurs creep’,

The reader’s threaten’d (not in vain) with ‘sleep’.

Today Pope might mock the rhyme cliches of pop songs: the “desire” that always burns “like fire,” a “love” that must come “from up above.”

If you share Milton’s distaste for the “jingling sound of like endings,” you might prefer slant rhyme instead. That is, rhyme with the same ending consonant but a different vowel sound, like Macbeth’s “poor player who ‘struts’ and ‘frets’ his hour upon the stage.” If perfect rhymes are sugar to the ear, slant rhymes are salt.

We wait for the perfect rhyme to find its partner, but slant rhymes we may never see coming. Take Paul Muldoon’s poem “Quoof,” a poem about a word— “our family word / for the hot water bottle”—and about the familiar and tribal idiosyncrasies of the supposedly common language we speak.

In the poem, that single awkward syllable—“quoof”—falls between two nearstrangers about to share a bed for the first time. The poem acts out their giddiness with each other in its far-fetched, almostmismatched rhymes: An hotel room in New York City

with a girl who spoke hardly any English,

my hand on her breast

like the smouldering one-off spoor of the yeti

or some other shy beast that has yet to enter the language.

I missed these rhymes the first time— let’s be honest—the first several times I read the poem. Keep saying it aloud, though, and the rhymes emerge, each end word paired with an unlikely partner.

“English” and “language” is a mad-

deningly glorious stretch. Maybe you’ll protest, as I once did: “They don’t rhyme.” And they don’t—at least until you chew them over, letting the sound convince you. The English language we thought we knew seems to change there between the tongue and the ear.

I can’t read “Quoof” without thinking of Bun B’s (Bernard Freeman) verse on UGK’s song “One Day.” The rapper and Rice University lecturer bends the sounds of words to rhyme “drama / harm ya / bombers / palm of / California / hydroponic / marijuana / sauna / corner.”

On the page these may not read as rhymes. But listen as Bun B’s enunciation links them together. As the verse ends, he grieves for the death of a friend “behind a funky-ass dice game / I saw him once before he died, wish it was twice, man.” The “a” in “man” lengthens to sound almost like “main.” The rhyme locks into place.

As when Shakespeare seals a scene with a rhyming couplet, Bun B resolves the long series of rhymes with his own.

His voice convinces us of the rhyme; the rhyme convinces us of even more.

Your ear already knows all of this.

It knows how rhyme’s hits and nearmisses delight and surprise us. How they lurk sometimes in the midst of a line—“The blonde ‘assassin passes’ on” (Emily Dickinson)—or announce themselves and their rhymer—“’Bout my coins like ‘Mario’ / Yeah they call me Cardi B, / I run this shit like ‘cardio’” (Cardi B, “I Like It”).

Your ear knows, but sometimes the mind needs a reminder. Sometimes the world—at least in rhymes—almost makes sense.

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Taiwanese game “Devotion” Playlist of the Week removed from Steam

Jackson Rudoff Opinion Editor

Are you someone with obscure music tastes? Do you enjoy flexing how underground the bands you listen to are? For this week, we’ve created a playlist just for you appreciators of the underappreciated. Enjoy a selection of five songs mined from the depths of Spotify, each of which have not been streamed as much as they should.

Tell Me Heaven Is Here The Buoys

This song feels a bit like a throwback, which fits well with the aesthetics of the album cover. It’s got nice vocal harmonies, bongos and a bridge with a tempo-changing guitar solo. The Buoys weren’t very big when they were around in the 1970s, but you might be able to say they were overlooked. This song feels and sounds like a number of classics from the era, but that may have worked against them as they tried to carve out a niche for themselves.

Too Far - Jan Hammer

Is it just me, or does this song sound like it belongs on the demo DVD for a plasma TV from the early 2000s? As you could guess from my specificity, this is exactly what this song is from, or at least, what a staff member recognized it from. It’s highly computerized, with industrial-sounding drums and synthetic guitar and vocal melodies. The song never really goes anywhere, but it remains interesting due to its obscure origins and history.

Devil’s Down and Out Lifeseeker

This is where we’re getting into the stuff that has few plays for a reason. Brockhampton popularized emo rap once again, but Lifeseeker appears to have been 15 years ahead of them. This song has the same drums used throughout the album, but the vocals are much less muddled and easy to understand. There are elements of Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine here, but it is also pretty clear why Lifeseeker didn’t blow up as much as their influences.

Nonetheless, it’s still an entertaining listen and is bound to make your friends who are active on Soundcloud happy.

What’s Next..? Woolymammoth

Woolymammoth is one of these most underappreciated producers around right now, as most of his albums are filled with highquality beats. He’s good at mixing samples with wobbly synths and muddy drums, creating a unique and unorthodox sound that sets him apart from most mainstream electronic producers. Of all the artists on this list, he’s the one with the most talent and is the most deserving of more hype.

Restless - Yeo

“Restless” is a funky and inviting track, with nice production, synth work and harmonized vocals—that sound vocoded— that keep it interesting. With good headphones, this song especially stands out, as the mixing shifts throughout and engages the entire sound spectrum. One of the best parts of the undercurrents of Spotify is that you stumble upon artists that easily have the chops to make it big, and Yeo definitely falls within this category.

Find all these tracks online with our weekly Spotify playlist at observer.case.edu All photos courtesy pluspremiers.us, genius.com, directlyrics.com, and wikipedia.com

Devotion Release Poster

David Chang Staff Reporter

In the horror game “Devotion,” a father character kills his daughter in a bath of snakes, but it was Winnie the Pooh that ultimately caused the game to be taken off Steam.

“Devotion” walks the player through a first-person perspective of a delusional screenwriter who develops cultlike beliefs and drowns his daughter as a healing ritual. The player solves puzzles and places items with the horror storyline of the father realizing the sins he committed.

Besides poor parent-child relationships and obsession of religious customs, the game covers themes of familial dispute about roles between spouses, responses to failure and success as a family and the academic stress placed on children at an early age.

Depictions of 1980s Taiwanese items such as apartment architecture, food, school supplies and newspaper clippings are familiar to some players. Although the game seems packaged for a Chinese audience, its message about transparency within a family is universal. Throughout the game’s progress, the player gains empathy for the stressed out father juggling a sick daughter, his faltering career and a dissatisfied ex-actress wife.

However, an “easter egg” of a poster with the words “Xi Jinping” and “Winnie the Pooh” written in old Chinese characters was found. The image of Pooh is sensitive in China, as memes comparing Xi and Pooh date back to 2013 when a picture of Xi and Obama surfaced. Pooh, and even the terms “steamed bun” and “baozi,” are censored on the Chinese web.

China has a long history of censoring

concepts like democratic ideals, past historic events, names of prominent protestors and even the Me Too hashtag, which users had replaced with the bunny and rice emoji, as they are homophones to the hashtag.

Red Candle Games, the company that produced the game, issued a statement in Chinese saying: “The whole team of Red Candle Games bears the responsibility of this awfully unprofessional mistake.”

They noted that the poster was only placeholder art that was never removed once the game launched.

“It is not Red Candle’s vision to secretly project extensive ideology, nor is it to attack any person in the real world … We sincerely hope that this ends with Red Candle, and please do not take it out on all of our innocent partners,” a spokesperson posted on the company’s Facebook page.

One may argue that all publicity is good publicity. The game was very popular in the Chinese community, its hashtag was trending with over 120 million views on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

Even videos of live-streamed walkthroughs played of the games were taken down, which is vital to the game in a time where streaming audience is paramount on platforms such as Twitch, and games can no longer rely on being featured in YouTube videos.

“Devotion” followed “Detention,” Red Candle Games’ first game set in 1960s Taiwan during the “White Terror” period, when 3,000 citizens were executed and around 140,000 imprisoned when the ruling government, Kuomintang, declared martial law. For a small indie company like Red Candle, the easter egg may be a big economic hit, and the game may not reappear on other gaming distribution platforms.

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Hozier’s sophomore album worth the five year wait

Courtesy of Neon Tommy and Katie Buenneke Hozier released his second album, “Wasteland, Baby!” and is touring the U.S.

Henry Bendon Staff Reporter

Every Tuesday night at 8:45 p.m., people start lining up for a show at

Doyle’s of College Street in Dublin. They wait, packed in a stairwell drinking beers, until whenever Doyle’s considers 9 p.m. to be (usually around 9:15 p.m.) to pay seven

euros that will eventually be donated to charity and sit in silence to watch people play music.

The show is called The Ruby Sessions, the ambience comes exclusively from tea light candles and the names of the biggest acts that have visited that tiny and exceedingly warm stage grace the walls: Ed Sheeran, Damien Rice and Mumford and Sons among them. The acts are printed in different size fonts, with the bigger names standing out—a fact the sound technicians will deny—and the biggest one by far, belongs to Hozier.

Hozier, the stage name adopted by Irish singer Andrew Hozier-Byrne, hails from the village of Bray, just to the south of Dublin County. Regardless, Dublin claims Hozier as its own. He started in the city, studying music for a year at Trinity College before dropping out to focus on his life as a performing artist, and both his albums were produced by the Dublin independent label Rubyworks Records. Occasionally he’ll stop by the places he played when he grew up, and there’s more than a few bartenders who will tell stories of seeing Hozier well before he was famous.

So it came as no surprise that when Hozier released a new album entitled “Wasteland, Baby!” on March 1, the Dublin music community was beyond excited.

Hozier’s new album is right in his wheelhouse. Hozier’s voice is his biggest weapon, and he wields it like a master swordsman.

In his tenure in the Trinity music

department, Hozier was involved in both the orchestra and a choral ensemble, which he used as inspiration when writing “Wasteland, Baby!”

It’s hard to assign Hozier a genre.

His album is rich and soulful, with crying guitars and a bass and drum part that are simultaneously distinct noises and the same instrument, thumping their way through layers of keys and backup singing to form a powerhouse of rhythm and melody that is just wonderful to listen to.

He also plays well with others: the lead track off the EP “Nina Cried Power” is both a tribute to and features gospel legend Mavis Staples.

Even without Staples, the EP is great: “Almost (Sweet Music)” is definitely a standout but listening to the whole tracklist is worth your time, especially the goosebump inducing song “Nina Cried Power,” which uses both Hozier and Staples’ vocals to create a strong, emotionally compelling opening track.

For those looking for a song to showcase Hozier’s accent the final song of the EP “Shrike” does just that.

It is a great song to listen to if you want to hear the Irish traditional influences that also play a role in his music.

“Wasteland, Baby!” is available everywhere on standard streaming services and in record stores. Hozier is currently on an American tour in support of the album that ends on April 14.

Rating:

Comedian Steven Wright discusses Twitter novel ahead of Cleveland show Yvonne Pan

Arts & Entertainment Editor “Everyone is a universe,” Steven Wright, an Oscar-winning and Emmynominated comedian said.

Although he is a star in stand-up comedy known for his deadpan delivery and clever one-liners Wright’s talent extends far beyond a single metaphorical galaxy.

In 2011, he started writing a novel, later titled “Harold,” on Twitter.

“I made a Twitter after I reread “The Beach,” [a story Wright wrote that was published by Rolling Stone Magazine in 1986] and thought I should write another story,” Wright said. “So I figured I’d just write a story on Twitter.”

Wright’s innovative idea was met with a mixed response.

“Some people said, ‘You’re crazy, Twitter is for jokes,’” he said. “But others thought it was amazing.”

With a 280 character limit, Wright could not finish the novel immediately.

He often did not finish sentences either.

His last Twitter post regarding the novel in 2011 ended with the fragment, “Her [Ms. Yuka, Harold’s teacher] quiet...”

After a few scattered tweets, Wright continued the novel from that fragment in 2013, without any announcement.

Wright’s comedic talent shines in his simple, yet enigmatic writing. “Harold,” although originally written on Twitter, is published in its entirety on Wright’s website.

“Harold” often features several ideas

confined in a single short paragraph that leaves the reader wondering about the significance of any given statement.

In the second paragraph, Harold recites a list of his favorite colors, but concedes that “he did not like aqua because the spelling irritated him.” Harold’s train of thought then jumps to surrealism, and there is no mention of color in any succeeding paragraphs.

Toward the middle of the novel, Harold describes Elizabeth Henderson, the object of his affection and writes a note about her. “It said ‘Dear Elizabeth I think your shadow should be in color.’”

Before the reader can appreciate the weight of this, Harold eats the note.

In Wright’s writing, every individual idea is given equal weight and cannot be simply approached like one would a novel but rather a puzzle of witty oneliners.

The last line of the unfinished novel is “to be continued probably.”

Wright’s scattered storytelling would make any English Ph.D. weep and is still accessible to fans of his comedy.

Wright started performing stand-up at the Ding Ho comedy club in Cambridge, where Peter Lassally, a former executive producer of “The Tonight Show” discovered him in 1982. He was subsequently booked as a guest on Johnny Carson’s show.

Almost four decades later, Wright’s stand-up has remained relatively unchanged. His unfeeling voice and monotonous delivery accompanies his ironic, sometimes nonsensical jokes.

Wright’s name evokes classic lines

Courtesy of Josh Kidd

like “I was in a speed reading accident.

I hit a bookmark” and “I lost a buttonhole.”

“After him, a comic didn’t need transitions, didn’t need to address or even acknowledge the crowd, didn’t necessarily have to appear to be enjoying

himself,” Brian McKim, a fellow comedian, told the New York Times in 2008.

“Wright made it OK to have no unifying theme other than the comic’s mind, his thought processes.”

Wright will be performing at the Ohio Theater on March 22.

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Did You Know Weatherhead Offers Undergraduate Academic Programs in All of These Areas?

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opinion Editorial

Wealth’s clear advantages in college admissions

The immense pressure and anxiety that accompanies applying for college cannot be understated. While the recency of the experience of college admissions varies around campus, all of us can definitely remember the grind of application essays, the scramble for resume fillers and the nausea that decision day brought. Even then, acceptance didn’t guarantee attendance for many, as cost considerations and financial aid could still be ambiguous.

Now, imagine being in a situation where all of these factors were muted or, in some cases, nonexistent. Your resume and test scores were perfect, your admission was guaranteed and, most importantly, cost of attendance didn’t impact you in the slightest.

The college admissions scandal that broke this past week gave everyone a look into such a reality. We saw numerous examples of students, who already benefit from the vast wealth of their families, have any remaining obstacles eliminated for them. Their transcripts were boosted, and they were assigned false athletic ability; anything that would give them unhindered opportunities for acceptance. With the help of their parents’ money, they became the perfect prospective students.

While these revelations were shocking to many across the country, a large contingency of college students

saw the scandal as unsurprising. College always has, and probably always will, benefit those with the resources and access to the best opportunities.

These pay-to-play stories are just a more conspicuous event within casual elitism that plagues college admissions.

It’s easy to get lost in these bribery incidents because we have specific people to pin our frustration on. A bunch of rich parents from around the country used sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to enhance the benefits their kids already had. We’ve suddenly got specific people that we can label as part of the problem, which is always nice with how the frustration from admissions lingers.

But focusing only on the people who offered the money takes blame away from those who accepted it: the college coaches, William Singer and his college counseling business, and, perhaps most importantly, the schools that allowed such blatant offenses to go unnoticed. In the end, the story returns our attention to the sheer power that money and influence have in college admissions and the way the system advantages those that need the least help.

Applying for college does not, in and of itself, require any sort of money.

But being in a position to apply to the best schools, or have the best chance of getting into the ones that interest you, is

not something everyone has access to.

Even sending in an application may not be possible for all, if you can’t secure fee waivers or afford enough test reports for schools that require them.

What gets put in that application, however, is an entirely different issue.

Now, it isn’t enough to just be an outstanding student in the classroom.

You will also need to be an athlete, have community service experience and have other unique extracurriculars that make you more special than the next student.

All the while, you have to find time to prepare for standardized tests that don’t necessarily correlate with academic achievement.

The students most equipped for the seemingly endless process of college admissions are those who attend preparatory academies or well-funded public schools. They will meet often with dedicated guidance counselors or have access to ACT and SAT preparation courses that boost their scores and overall chance of attending high-ranking universities.

There are many students in the U.S. who don’t get the guidance they need to consolidate their activities and academics into an effective package for admissions counselors. That is if they get encouragement to do so from their teachers and school counselors at all.

For those that do come from these more humble situations, they have to prove

their socioeconomic or community disadvantage was severe enough for them to be worthy of an exclusive institution.

This isn’t to say that prestigious schools haven’t made efforts to encourage socioeconomic diversity on their campuses. Especially in terms of financial aid, many schools, like Case Western Reserve University, have attempted to do better in terms of meeting the need of those they admit. But still, cost of attendance still remains a problem for those that do get into the most prestigious schools. They will often be surrounded by students who don’t have as many monetary struggles and will themselves have to take out loans.

These students do have other options, though, in community colleges, which tend to have more resources in place for less well-off students. Many also have programs that allow you to transfer to four-year universities. Still, the fact that a lack of wealth would be what causes qualified students to attend a less prestigious program is incredibly problematic.

Whether we want to admit it or not, money still is at the center of getting into and going to a high-tier college.

What this scandal with admissions revealed, however, is that it may be even more important than we could have even imagined.

Is a parking pass worth it?

Asking the Real Questions Jason Richards Parking at Case Western Reserve University is a hefty investment.

For my parking pass this semester, I had to pay $281.60 to park in the lot outside my dorm on the south side of campus. And that’s for only one semester.

Yes, that adds up to over $560 in parking fees for one academic year, for one lot. In my case, my hometown of Pittsburgh is close enough that I decided it made up its value in saving my parents the trip to and from campus to pick me up.

But as of writing this article, I have next to me a parking violation I received less than an hour ago in the amount of $25 for parking in another campus lot for my 7 p.m. class.

The lot was empty.

Paying over $560 a year and not being able to park in any other

campus lots for any amount of time is a lot to dish up. I mean, what real reason do they have to ticket me for parking in an empty lot when I’m paying this amount to stay in another?

I get that letting any permit holder access any lot at any time could definitely pose some logistical problems for people who need to park there on a consistent basis, but when the lot is empty, what harm is being done?

I really think that some of these open lots like the one I parked in for my late class could benefit students if rules were only enforced during specific hours. Seeing as the lot is barely used at nighttime, the time of my ticket, there’s no reason to continue to enforce the area as if it were the middle of a class day. On top of that, it’s much safer to give students the option to drive to their class at night, especially if it is far from their dorm.

My parking pass, because it is for

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Jason Richards/Observer The author’s receipt for a parking pass for one semester.

an outside lot, was actually cheaper than most. Passes for covered parking garages often cost more.

You would also think that, at these prices, you’d get a little more bang for your buck.

The lot I’m currently paying for is riddled with potholes, and you can’t see the painted lines indicating the actual parking spots. If they’re paying traffic enforcement to ticket left and right—even valuable paying customers—at unreasonable hours, why can’t they budget a little more

money for the maintenance of these expensive parking lots?

With how much we’re already paying for tuition, it doesn’t feel worth it to pay for ease of transportation on campus just to face even more fees later.

Jason Richards is a secondyear computer science major. He procrastinates writing these articles and drives the whole editorial board mad. Oops.

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opinion 11

observer.case.edu

Keep the killer nameless Peter for You Peter Wilson Last week, the world was rocked by the news that two mosques had been attacked by a white nationalist.

Mass shootings are, unfortunately, a common problem in America, but this past Friday’s attack occurred in New Zealand. Leaving at least 50 dead, the shooter used an semi-automatic rifle to perpetrate the attack.

Little time was wasted before the world began to respond. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, is quickly moving to ban the weapon and similar automatic weapons, something the United States has repeatedly failed to even approach. Another move she and the rest of the government has made is to do all they can to keep the shooter “nameless,” refusing to release the shooter’s name or picture to the public.

This is an outstanding move, and one the United States should consider, should another attack on a school or other public area happen. Keeping perpetrators anonymous restricts their ability to inspire similar attacks in the future.

To clarify, when I say keep the killer nameless, I don’t mean just not to release their name. We shouldn’t release any information about them at all. This would serve to keep the story about what the story should be about: the tragedy.

These attacks occur for a multitude of reasons: from mental health issues to nationalism and beyond.

But never forget the tragedy

One common thread of all of these attacks, at least in the United States, is the public identification of the perpetrator. This public identification leads to a sensationalization of the shooter, and, in some ways, glorifies the shooter and their actions. I am sure that this is not the intent of identifying the perpetrator, but it is a very serious and misplaced action in the aftermath of a deadly attack.

Often following a public identification, investigations into these shooters’ lives are done, and we learn much about their lives and stories. For instance, after the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016, the Daily Mirror published a cover story about the shooter with a picture of the shooter taking a mirror selfie.

Why did the front cover of this magazine need to include a smiling, mirror selfie of the perpetrator?

This is glorification, pure and simple. There was absolutely no need to publish that picture or any background or information about the killer at all. The only necessary information was about the shooting itself and how terrible and tragic it was. The information given about the shooter in this case, and in many other cases, serves to make the killer into something they should not be portrayed as.

I am not trying to discount these terrible events. All I am trying to say is that by attempting to stop the glorification of these killers, we could prevent more of these shootings in the future. All media is media, no matter how good or bad. Even these portrayals of the shooters in negative light may serve

to inspire some to go and commit more of these atrocities.

In addition to this search for glory, a live stream of the New Zealand shooting was uploaded to Facebook but was quickly taken down. That being said, another 1.2 million copies of the video were attempted to be uploaded onto the social network, but thankfully, they were stopped.

Unfortunately, videos were copied from the original video and posted to other, more radical websites like 8chan. Why were these videos uploaded if not to glorify the actions of the shooter and inspire others to commit more heinous crimes?

Glory and fame may not be all that the shooter is after, but they definitely play a part in the perpetrator’s decisions, conscious or not.

If another mass shooting occurs, I urge everyone to keep the shooter nameless to halt the inspiration of others. We can all work together to prevent these tragedies, and this is one integral aspect we as a society can improve on.

Peter Wilson is a second-year biomedical engineering student on the biocomputing and informatics track. He works in the Gustafson Lab and can be found on Twitter at @ wpieltseorn.

Courtesy of Wikipedia A photo of one of the Christchurch mosques that were attacked. The incident has sparked conversations regarding how we react to mass shootings.

Islamophobia’s deep roots I Spit My Truth and It’s Brown Viral Mistry I woke up last Friday to learn that on the other side of the world a white supremacist brutally murdered 50 Muslims during a prayer service at two mosques.

I felt a lot of emotions as I read what had happened and unsuccessfully tried to comprehend why this depraved individual did what he did.

Frustration. Rage. Fear. Hopelessness.

Fury. Despair.

I felt sorrow for all the souls brutally taken from us. I found strength in the outpouring of solidarity and love I saw across social media. And yet, I felt dismayed and lost with the reactions so many had, who saw this is as a freak incident of random violence and hate.

It’s not. This brutality is the result of generations of hate, violence and discrimination against Muslims around the world. This hate needs to be eradicated at its roots if we want to see an end to this injustice.

I’ve watched world leaders, public officials and political pundits all condemn the horror that unfolded last week, despite their complicity in the normalization of global Islamophobia. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke of how the attack was “not who we are,” despite campaigning in the 2017 election to slash immigration levels and forming a coalition government with the strongly anti-immigrant New Zealand First (NZ First) party, which seeks even stricter immigration laws. Ardern’s coalition agreement made the head of

NZ First, Winston Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister. Peters has repeatedly ranted about Asian-Muslim immigrants being unassimilable and warned about the demographic threat they pose against white New Zealanders.

Politicians in the U.S. who repeatedly supported the FBI as it illegally surveilled U.S. mosques, who violated civil liberties with unconstitutional policies like the nofly list which disproportionately targeted Muslims and who routinely advocated for

implemented this ban on his first day in the White House and has routinely defended it in court since.

Earlier this week, Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro claimed on her show that a black Muslim refugee congresswoman would be unable to stay loyal to the U.S. Constitution because of her faith. Her colleague Tucker Carlson, one of the most watched cable TV personalities in the country, has repeatedly claimed that ethnic and religious diversity is not

We must absolutely condemn these acts of hate. But we must also work to dismantle the structures that lead people to believe that such acts are acceptable to commit in the first place.

- Viral Mistry, on the recent mass shooting at New Zealand mosques military intervention in Muslim-majority countries suddenly realized that hate and violence against Muslims are not permissible.

Our dear leader, President Donald Trump, even extended his “warmest sympathies” to the New Zealand people, even though he infamously called for a ban on all travel from numerous Muslimmajority countries after a reactionary Islamic terrorist attack occurred. He

a good thing and has also warned of the demographic threat of immigrants turning white Americans into a minority.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) even indirectly implied that the shooter had valid concerns about immigration in his statement condemning the shooting, something our president echoed when he remarked about an invasion of immigrants coming to the U.S. And it’s not just in the U.S.; Indian

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his deep shock and sadness, even though he infamously oversaw a pogrom against Muslims in 2002 in his home state of Gujarat. His party constantly trafficks in anti-Muslim sentiment to whip up support, and he rules in coalition with a party which has called for Muslims to be stripped of their right to vote and be forcibly sterilized to control the demographic threat they pose.

The demographic threat of immigrant birth rates, the fears of assimilability and integration, the discriminatory policies, the state violence. All of these things had to come together for the shooter to see believers of one of the most diverse faiths in the world as an existential threat to his community. One that he decided must be purged from existence by any means necessary.

We must absolutely condemn these acts of hate. But we must also work to dismantle the structures that lead people to believe that such acts are acceptable to commit in the first place. We need to call out this hatred when it first festers and keep it from bubbling to the point where it spills blood, or it will never end.

Hate takes many forms. Call it out whenever you see it. Stand tall with your Muslim brothers and sisters in this moment of fear and intimidation.

Never forget that injury to one is an injury to all.

Viral Mistry is a fourth-year biology and cognitive science double major who is also minoring in chemistry, history and philosophy. He wants you to remember that a better world is possible and necessary.

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The 17-body problem Dastardly Liberal Schemes Steve Kerby As former President Barack Obama finished up his two terms in office, a freefor-all erupted in the Republican Party (GOP) to see who would get the chance to take down Obama’s heir apparent, Hillary Clinton. Seventeen candidates burst onto the stump circuit to plug their visions and rally the GOP base.

In the end, qualified and mainstream candidates were knocked out one by one until Donald Trump took the primary, setting him on the road to the presidency. Over the course of eight months, the seventeen candidates faced off in 12 debates, fast-paced exhibitions of frantic politicking.

By any measure, the 2016 GOP presidential primary was difficult to follow at best, malfunctioning democracy at worst.

Unfortunately, the Democrats seem headed in a similar direction for the 2020 presidential election, as candidates quickly pile up announcements and endorsements. A year and a half before the election, 16 Democrats have declared their candidacies or formed exploratory committees.

While Trump is at the center for most if not all these campaigns, the ideological debates in the Democratic party do not concern me here. Rather, if there’s a better way to run a generic presidential primary with 20 candidates, examining each step in turn.

The 2020 Democratic primaries, caucasus and debates are tentatively scheduled to begin in earnest in a few months. Debates will start in June, with the Iowa caucus heralding the arrival of the formal primary on Feb. 3, 2020 and states holding preliminary elections staggered over the next month. According to the Democratic Party website, participation in the debates and the publicity gained from such a prominent combative arena will be granted to candidates polling above one percent nationally or in early primary states or to those with diverse fundraising bases. All debates are limited to 20 participants.

The aim of a presidential primary is to choose a candidate for the general election, but until the mid-20th century, that choice was left to party elites. In an ideal world, primaries would be decided by a public vote of the party members.

Even here, contention arises. Some states, like New York, require a formal declaration of party loyalty to vote in a primary. Illinois, alternatively, allows any voter to choose any party primary in which to participate, which is known as an open primary.

An open primary allows the voices of independents to be considered in candidate selection but also allows mischievous opposition partisans to infiltrate any primary. Closed primaries exclude both independents and opposition members but force citizens to publicly declare a political leaning, which is fraught with social pressure. Every party in every state has

its own policies on this count, which is a matter of personal preference. I will not decisively criticize the practices of individual states.

Some unification, however, is necessary in the question of caucuses and primaries. A caucus is a more freewheeling public debate, followed by general assent by party members present at a polling location at a very limited time. A primary is the more familiar method of having a small preliminary election. Given the limiting, informal and politically charged nature of a caucus, a simple primary is probably preferable. Our generic presidential primary would not have any caucus components, making it more accessible to casual party members.

The timing of the presidential primary season also deserves revision. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina wield arbitrarily large power in selecting presidential candidates. While spreading out primaries over a few months allows for lengthy discussion and comparison of candidates, no single set of states deserve unswerving attention from candidates in the early stages of the race. The order of state primaries should therefore be randomized, with some individual contests positioned before the majority of the other states to examine candidates out of the gate and the vast majority of delegate votes reserved for bulk primary days later in the season.

Which candidates attend the debates is another fraught question. Debates must be open to lesser-known candidates to allow

for important minority voices but holding a 20-sided debate severely decreases the level of detail that can be presented.

Finally, the primary and debate processes should contribute toward the party coalescing around a candidate.

A gradual but forceful winnowing of candidates serves both these goals.

I propose decreasing the number of debates from a dozen to perhaps four, the number of participants decreasing to 10 after each based on aggregate national polling. This proposal might be sour grapes to lesser-known candidates, but it is vital to maintaining decorum and examining leading candidates in detail.

In the end, my proposals are about refocusing the American presidential primary around the selection of qualified candidates and eliminating antiquated or arbitrary processes. Eliminating caucuses and stretching out primary election days ensures that every party member has equal say in their state. Randomizing the order of state primaries breaks the hold of a few states on the critical first stages of the primaries. Having smaller debates, finally, allows for serious examination of political ideas, not quick sound bytes and insults.

Together, these three proposals would create a more transparent and stable system of primaries that supports the selection of qualified candidates for office.

Steve Kerby is a fourth-year studying astronomy and physics. He would like to formally announce he is running for the 2020 Democratic primary.

What have we become?

How the Trump administration systematically tracks menstrual cycles, pregnancies of teenagers In Case It Matters Jordan Reif

What has our country become?

Born on the backs of slaves, raised on the sustinence of genocide as the Native population was swept away, blind to Jewish refugees seeking asylum during World War II, deaf to Jim Crow lasting decades beyond its judicial overthrow, insensitive to closing the borders on asylum seekers and to our black brothers and sisters, murdered by our own police forces.

And now, our government is keeping a spreadsheet of refugee girls’—teenagers and younger—menstrual cycles and pregnancy gestational age in order to prevent their access to an abortion.

We should be ashamed. We should be screaming and tearing out our hair at this latest outrage, the state of our country and the actions of this administration. Yet most of us attend classes and carry on, laughing with our friends as if nothing is wrong.

We fall prey to the idea that if things look normal for us, then our country and our world simply must be okay.

Education and happiness are both critical for our future and our sanity, but they cannot be barriers to our standing up and demanding justice.

After the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Scott Lloyd was appointed head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), making him responsible for the integration of refugees, asylum seekers and other new immigrants into the United States. Having no previous refugee or immigration experience, Lloyd is known for his strong personal antiabortion and anti-contraceptive views.

As a lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, Lloyd authored a ruling allowing medical providers the right to

refuse contraceptives and abortions.

With this appointment, Trump’s strategy can only be seen as an effort to prohibit girls from accessing these services. As the gatekeeper and foster parent for all unaccompanied minors, Lloyd, used his position to stop girls from leaving their jails to access health services, including termination of pregnancy.

The first public notice of such acts was the case of Jane Doe, a 17-yearold refugee pregnant as a result of rape.

This young woman sued the ORR with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. In March 2018, the court ruled that the federal workers could not interfere or obstruct medical appointments, including

woman. Girls aged 12 to 17 were tracked and physically detained, prevented from seeing a physician for an abortion until it was no longer legally allowed due to gestational age.

America’s history—and present—is replete with efforts to silence minorities and women. For if we are silenced, it is harder for us, sometimes even impossible, to fight for justice and human rights. If Lloyd and the ORR, if Trump and the men who want to control women really wanted to prevent abortions, they would support proper sex education and birth control methods.

Currently, sex education in the U.S. is fueled by abstinence-only teachings and

“America’s history—and present—is replete with efforts to silence minorities and women.”

- Jordan Reif, on the Trump Adminsitration tracking women refugees abortion and women’s health.

Yet, for at least six months after this ruling, Lloyd and the ORR continued tracking pregnant girls in their custody.

Lloyd instructed his staff to find out when each girl became pregnant, while providing a “counselor” from a preapproved list of anti-abortion, “lifeaffirming” actors to try to convince the girl to continue her pregnancy.

Ignoring the judge’s ruling, Lloyd created a 28-page, detailed spreadsheet noting the date the pregnancy was reported, age, program number and state, result of a pregnancy test, estimated gestational age, whether it was reported to be a result of rape or consensual sex and additional notes regarding the specifics of girls’ menstrual cycles for each individual

routines of snapping rubber bands on high school girls’ arms, telling them they will be worthless if they have sex. Meanwhile, such practices and lectures are rarely given to boys.

We would do well with a system like that of the Netherlands, in which comprehensive sex education begins in primary school. Before becoming teenagers, Dutch children have already discussed ideas around body image, gender stereotypes, sexual orientation and forms of contraception. The Dutch system encourages respect for different sexual orientations and preferences, while helping students have skills to protect themselves from coercion or abuse.

Beyond their holistic approach to sex education, the Dutch make condoms

readily available while offering free birth control to anyone under 21. An open discussion about sex has paid off for the Netherlands, making them a country with one of the lowest teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rates in the world.

This is not what the U.S. does. Failing to teach adequate sex education to girls is a way to silence and shame them about reproductive rights and sexual preferences.

When these policies are applied to young female refugees, the result is no surprise. They come pleading for help. In response, we institutionalize them, taking away their rights and dignity. If they request medical assistance to terminate a pregnancy, these girls are physically detained until it is no longer legal for them to have an abortion under the state’s law.

What I want to ask is this: how can we spout rhetoric about equal opportunity and protection of rights while we force young girls to carry their pregnancies against their will, even when they are the result of rape?

In a 1918 speech, then U.S. Presidential candidate Eugene Debs proclaimed, “while there is a lower class, I am in it … and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Extending Debs’ beautiful and poetic speech, while women are abused, detained and silenced, we are as well. We must not for a moment forget about them.

Let us not forget to prioritize love and compassion for all as we work to dismantle the dystopian nightmare of this administration.

Jordan Reif is a first-year student studying political science on the pre-med track. She likes to spend her time reading, saving the bees or innovating new ideas for her startup “Ned talks”—a discussion forum for those who are just not quite good enough to make it to TED.

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3/22/19

Men’s tennis faces 10 opponents on spring break trip Claire Nordt Sports Editor

Spring break did not ensure a break for the men’s tennis team. The team faced 10 opponents throughout the course of the break, walking away victorious against seven of them.

To start the break off, the Spartans traveled to the United States Tennis Association National Campus in Orlando, where the team faced the University of Scranton and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The day began with a sweep against Scranton.

The Spartans then faced CMU. The Tartans started strong, claiming wins in both first and third doubles. Thirdyear Spartan Zach Hennessey and second-year teammate Matthew Chen were able to grab the win in second doubles, bringing CWRU down one heading into singles contests.

In singles play, CMU increased their lead early on, claiming wins in fourth singles over first-year Spartan Max Vicario and in fifth singles over fourth-year Spartan Rob Stroup.

These losses brought the Tartans to a 4-1 advantage. At sixth singles, Jonathan Powell was able to earn a win for the Spartans, followed by a win by Chen at first singles. Firstyear Spartan Aaron Umen picked up a win in third singles, bringing the two teams to a tie with only second singles remaining. Third-year student Anthony Kanam competed for the Spartans in the match.

His Tartan opponent claimed the first set, but Kanam came back to

win the next set, forcing a third set to decide the match. A Tartan win in the third set brought the final score to 5-4 for an overall match win for CMU. The Spartans next competed on March 11, facing Hampden-Sydney College (HSC), Wheaton College and Webber International University. In the match against HSC, the Spartans swept the doubles contests, giving the team an early lead. CWRU maintained their lead in singles play, claiming wins in all six singles contests and ending the match in a victory.

In their match against Wheaton, the team again swept the doubles contests. A sweep of the singles contests followed, earning the Spartans another 9-0 victory for the day.

Later that day, the team faced their third opponent, Webber International. The Warriors claimed an early lead with a win at second doubles. Chen and Powell teamed up to compete in first doubles, and second-year student Earl Hsieh and first-year teammate Chaitanya Aduru paired together for third doubles.

Both pairs earned wins for the Spartans, giving CWRU a 2-1 lead at the start of singles play. The team maintained their lead with wins in five of the six matches, earning the Spartans a match win, 7-2.

The following day, the team was back in action, taking on Trinity University. Trinity started with an early lead after claiming wins in first doubles and second doubles, where Chen and Hennessey were defeated in a tiebreaker. CWRU was

able to respond with a win at third doubles, where the first-year duo of Aduru and Umen bested their opponents. The Spartans were able to claim a win at sixth singles, but three losses at second, fifth and first singles secured the match to Trinity.

In the remaining two singles contests, Kanam claimed a win at third singles, and Stroup suffered a loss at fourth singles, bringing the overall match score to 6-3 for a Spartan loss.

Continuing on the spring break trip, the Spartans then faced Austin College and Kenyon College on March 13. The team split the matches, with a win against Austin followed by a loss against Kenyon.

The match against Kenyon started with a win and two losses for the Spartans in doubles play, where they claimed their win in first doubles with the pairing of Kanam and Powell. Powell would go on to also claim a Spartan win in his singles match at fifth singles. The win brought his record for singles matches to 15-2 for the season, a team best. Three Spartan losses in the next three singles contests secured the win for Kenyon. The Spartans followed with two wins in the following contests.

Third-year Spartan Sam Concannon won in fourth singles and Aduru claimed sixth singles. The two wins brought the final score to 5-4 for a Kenyon win.

In their match against Austin College, the Spartans swept the three doubles contests. CWRU then followed with wins in five of the six singles matches, falling only in second singles.

The Spartans returned to action on Friday, competing in their final two matches of the spring break trip.

The trip ended on a successful note with wins against both Amherst College and Dickinson College.

CWRU started strong against Amherst, sweeping all three doubles matches. In singles play, the Spartans added to their lead with a win

by Powell at fifth singles. Amherst fought back, claiming wins at third singles and fourth singles, cutting the Spartan lead to two, but a win

by Chen at first singles secured the win for CWRU. Aduru and Kanam added two more wins for the Spartans at sixth and second singles, respectively.

The men finished up their trip with the match against Dickinson.

The match started with singles play, and the Spartans swept the six contests in straight sets. In doubles play, CWRU added wins in first and third doubles. The lone loss for the Spartans occurred in second doubles, and the match ended 8-1 for a Spartan win.

With the conclusion of that match, the team ended its spring break trip.

The team’s 7-3 record on the trip brought the Spartans to 12-5 for the season. Standing out among the Spartan men was Powell, who finished the trip with a perfect 8-0 record in singles contests and 6-2 in doubles play.

The Spartans will return to action on March 30 when the team will travel to Rochester, New York to face the University of Rochester and Hobart College.

Women’s tennis faces top competition in Florida Claire Nordt Sports Editor

The women’s tennis team traveled to Florida for their spring break trip, where they competed against six opponents, securing four wins and suffering two losses.

The Spartans kicked off the trip with a win against Aquinas College on March 10. The day started with doubles contests. The Spartans claimed wins in two of the three matches, giving the women a strong start to the match. Second-year teammates Madeleine Paolucci and Nicole Cardwell contributed to the early lead with their win at first doubles, and first-year Spartans Shreyaa Mukund and Kristin Jones added the second win at third doubles. The Spartans continued their success in singles play, sweeping all six singles contests.

On the next day of their trip, the Spartan women took on Millsaps College, finishing the match with a win.

CWRU gained an early lead with two wins in doubles play. Paolucci and Cardwell were able to claim a Spartan win in first doubles for the second day in a row. The other win for CWRU came from third doubles where second-year student Mira Amin and first-

year teammate Eliza Georgiades defeated their opponents. Despite a loss at second doubles, the Spartans were up 2-1 heading into singles play.

In singles play, CWRU maintained their strong presence, winning five of the six contests. The wins came from Paolucci at first singles, firstyear Spartan Sneha Karnam at second singles and Cardwell at third singles. Amin defeated her opponent at fourth singles and first-year Nidhi Jha claimed victory at fifth singles to round out the Spartan wins. At sixth singles, Mukund fell to her opponent, but the Spartans had already secured the win for the day. The match ended 7-2.

The next match of the trip occurred the following day when CWRU faced No. 7 Wesleyan University. The competition proved tough, and the day ended in a 9-0 loss for the Spartans.

The team put the loss behind them the next day, facing two more opponents for the last two matches of the trip.

CWRU claimed the win against Austin College but fell to No. 3 Amherst College.

The day started on a low note, when the team was defeated by Amherst 8-1. The lone win came from Paolucci at first singles. The Spartans did not let the loss discourage them

Courtesy of CWRU Athletics First-year Spartan Eliza Georgiades keeps her eye on the ball.

in their following match against Austin. The Spartans came out strong with wins by the first-year duos of Karnam and Georgiades at second doubles and Mukund and Jones at third doubles. Paolucci and Amin fell to their opponents at first doubles, but the Spartans had the advantage heading into singles play. The Spar-

tans continued on strongly, sweeping the six singles contests and claiming the win.

The end of the spring break trip brought the Spartans’ overall record to 5-4 for the season. The women will return to action on March 29 when the Spartans will be facing Kenyon College on the road.

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Athlete Spotlight

Second-year runner sprinting into spring season

Niko Kamlet Staff Reporter

Eric Rachita is a distance runner on both the Case Western Reserve University cross country and track teams. Last track season, he achieved personal records of 2:07.47 in the 800-meter run and a 15:50.94 in the 5,000-meter run. While not on the run, Eric conducts research for the polymer science department, showing the world how polymer science is actually a big part of everyone’s lives.

What is your favorite part of being on the track team? Why? I love having a group of really close friends to support me. There’s something about running that builds strong friendships, and I think that’s something unique to the sport.

Where did you get your passion for running? Any good stories?

Both my parents ran cross country and track at the College of Wooster,

so they were a big influence that led me to running. They’ve always been a big part of why I run and are always there to cheer me on. There’s also a night 5k race in my hometown put on by the high school cross country team, so I ran that almost every year as a kid. The glow sticks and free food at the finish were reason enough to give cross country a shot in middle school.

Do you have any meets that you remember being particularly special?

Why? Last track season, I was pretty close to breaking 16 minutes in the 5k. I battled a lot of injury in high school and was finally putting together a long season of training, so I was finally seeing success. I crushed the time by running a 15:50 at a meet at Ohio Wesleyan last year. I was super happy to have reached my goal and have my teammates there to celebrate with me.

Aside from track, what else are you involved in on

What do you hope to campus? Clubs, accomplish with the student orgs, Greek life? Can you explain degree? what you do in them?

I do research in the polymer science department. I’m working on computer modeling of new molecules synthesized in the lab to help predict how they will behave as an industrial product.

Why are you majoring in polymer science and engineering? What interests you about it?

I had a really amazing AP Chemistry teacher in high school, so I came to Case knowing that I wanted to stick close to chemistry. I was on the fence for a while between chemical engineering and polymer science. I ended up choosing polymer science engineering because it is a relatively small major around the country and is used in almost all commercial materials. There’s a lot of things we use that we don’t realize are the result of polymer science.

I’m hoping to go to graduate school after my time at CWRU, probably in organic chemistry or something similar. I really like the research that I’m doing, so I hope to continue with that in grad school as well. From there, I’d like to go into industry working on new materials that are more sustainable than what we use today.

What are your favorite free time activities? Why?

It sounds nerdy but I’ve always loved watching documentaries on Netflix … I’ve always found them fascinating no matter what the topic is, and learning something new is always really cool. I’m also watching “Parks and Recreation” right now …

[It’s a] really good show.

What is your favorite quote or what inspires you?

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” - American distance runner, Steve Prefontaine

Baseball’s offense doesn’t take a spring break Claire Nordt Sports Editor

The Spartan baseball team opened their spring break trip in Atlanta with a twogame series against Oglethorpe University. CWRU defeated the Stormy Petrels 9-0, which was the third straight win for the Spartans. The game had several highlight moments, including second-year pitcher Matt Levine pitching seven shutout innings and second-year left fielder Jake Ryan and third-year centerfielder Samual Neal each hitting their first home runs of the season.

CWRU started the game strong, scoring three runs in the first inning. They increased their lead in the fourth with a solo home run by Neal. An additional run came from a sacrifice fly by fourth-year catcher Tyler Wypiszenski, and a tworun home run by Ryan brought the team to a 7-0 lead at the end of the fourth. The Spartans scored in the fifth on a throwing error and in the seventh on a ground out, bringing the Spartans to 9-0. Two more scoreless innings for Oglethorpe brought the game to an end.

The second game of the series occurred the next day. The Spartans claimed another win, defeating Oglethorpe 6-2. Just as they had the previous day, the Spartans started strongly with four runs in the first inning, three of which came from a home run hit by first-year designated hitter Nathan Shapiro. The hit was his first career home run. In the third inning, a solo home run by Wypiszenski brought the Spartan lead to 5-0. Oglethorpe was able to score a run in the sixth, but CWRU responded with a run, maintaining a five run lead.

The Stormy Petrels scored one last run in the ninth, but fourth-year pitcher Corey Brown was able to end the game without

any more runs for the hosts.

The Spartans continued their spring break at the 2019 Spartan Southern Classic at Lexington County Stadium in Lexington, South Carolina. The Spartans opened the tournament with a doubleheader against Roger Williams University (RWU). The day ended with two losses for CWRU. The first game started roughly for the Spartans who faced a 6-2 deficit heading into the sixth inning. CWRU fought back, igniting a comeback in the sixth with three runs. In the seventh, second-year shortstop Jacob Lott was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, evening the score. Fourthyear second baseman Rocco Maue singled in two runs, giving the Spartans their first lead of the game, 8-6. RWU scored in the eighth, and a walk-off double for the Hawks in the ninth ended the game, 9-8.

CWRU faced a similar start in the second game, with the Hawks scoring four runs in the first inning. Three more in the second inning and one in both the third and fifth sunk the Spartans to an early 9-3 deficit heading into the bottom of the fifth. The Spartans scored two with runscoring singles from third-year first baseman Noah Mehrle and Neal, but RWU responded with two runs of their own in the sixth. Three runs for the Spartans brought the score to 11-8 in the ninth, which would ultimately be the final score for the game.

The next day, the Spartans faced the Hawks again. Ryan stood out, recording six hits which matched the program record. First-year pitcher Willem Bouma also had a standout game, pitching five shutout innings in his first career start.

The game started strongly for the Spartans and stayed that way for the whole seven innings. The fourth inning proved particularly strong for the Spartans because the team scored 12 runs, bringing

Courtesy of CWRU Athletics First-year pitcher Keaton Stankowski delivers a pitch during a recent game.

the lead to 16-0. Three more Spartan runs and one RWU run in the sixth brought the final score to 19-1. CWRU recorded a season-high 24 hits in the game, and the 19 runs scored were the most runs the Spartans have recorded since a 20-15 win in 2017.

The teams faced off for a final time the following day. The game was close at the end of the second, with RWU leading 4-2.

Four runs in the fourth for the Spartans brought CWRU into the lead. They held that lead for the rest of the game, as thirdyear pitcher Scott Kutschke entered at the top of the fourth and pitched six shutout innings. The Spartans scored two more runs in the eighth and finished the game with an 8-4 win.

The Spartans then faced Western New England University (WNE) for a twogame series. In the first game, CWRU

fell 2-0, missing opportunities to score.

The team did not let the loss discourage them, and won the second game against the Golden Bears the next day. The Spartans competed strongly, scoring at least one run in each of the first six innings and brought the score to 11-0. Mehrle allowed a run in relief in the seventh. Both CWRU and WNE scored a run in the eighth, ultimately ending the game in a 12-2 Spartan win.

The final spring break game for the CWRU was against Trinity College. The Spartans ended the week strongly, scoring 18 runs on 18 hits, and recording a total of 14 strikeouts by three pitchers. The 18-6 win brings the Spartans to an 8-6 overall record.

The Spartans will return to the field on March 23, when the team will take on Fredonia in Cleveland with a doubleheader set to start at noon.

sports Track and field opens outdoor season David Chang Staff Reporter

Courtesy of CWRU Athletics

Fourth-year student Nicole Doyle steps up to the plate to bat. The Spartans have opened their season with a .500 record through their first 10 games and recently traveled to Arizona for their spring break trip, which they finished with a 4-2 record.

Softball splits in Arizona Team begins season with successful spring break trip Andrew Ford Staff Reporter

One season after a program-best sixth place finish at the NCAA Division III Championships, the Case Western Reserve University softball team began their 2019 campaign with a target on their backs.

Yet, in spite of a grueling non-conference schedule, the Spartans have opened the season with a .500 record through their first eight games, including a 4-2 record during their spring break trip to Arizona.

The season did not start cleanly, though. The team saw their first action on March 2 at the Pio Classic in Kentucky, ultimately losing both of their games during the chilly afternoon.

In their season opener, the Spartans fell in five innings to Thomas More University, 8-0.

The contest was close for the first four innings, with CWRU only trailing by two entering the top of the fifth. However, that half inning ended like the rest for the Spartans: scoreless.

Thomas More took advantage of the opportunity, gaining momentum early in the inning and exploding for six runs, thereby ending the game two innings short. The CWRU bats did not fare any better in the second game of the day, losing 5-1 to Transylvania University. In total for both games, the Spartans only recorded seven hits.

Quickly, though, Head Coach Josie Henry and her squad put that weekend behind them.

They traveled to Tucson, Arizona for the Tucson Invitational from March 11 through 15.

On the first day of the competition, CWRU showed the dominance that earned them a bid to the national championship tournament a year ago, defeating the No. 15 team in the country, Central College, by a score of 8-0 in just five innings.

The Spartans jumped on Central early, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first. Their

bats were mostly quiet for the next three innings, but in the bottom of the fifth, they erupted for four more runs to end the game.

Third-year pitcher Ilissa Hamilton pitched all five innings and only surrendered two hits.

Third-year first baseman Nicole Carty went 3-for-3 from the plate, scoring two runs and driving one in herself. CWRU lost the second game to Millikin University, 5-4. First-year designated player Liv Thomas hit her first career home run in the game.

Games were canceled on Tuesday, and the Spartans had Wednesday off, so they returned to play on Thursday. CWRU won their two games by two runs each, first beating George Fox University 7-5 and then prevailing over St. Mary’s College 4-2. Against George Fox, Hamilton earned the win, and Carty came on in relief in the seventh to earn the save. Second-year catcher Dusstyn Reynolds hit a double that scored two Spartan runners in the bottom of the sixth, putting the game out of reach for George Fox. In the second game against St. Mary’s, second-year pitcher Sidney Brannam entered the game in relief of Carty and held St. Mary’s scoreless for her 5 2/3 innings.

On their final day of competition in Arizona, the Spartans split their two games. They began the day with a 7-5 loss to Buena Vista University but capped off a successful trip with a 5-0 victory against the University of Wisconsin at Platteville. In the win, Brannam pitched a shutout.

After returning from the trip, the Spartans split a doubleheader at home against Baldwin Wallace University on Wednesday, March 20, losing the first game 5-4 in eight innings and winning the second 14-4 in five innings. They will be at home again on Saturday, March 23 to host Kenyon College.

The Case Western Reserve University track and field team began its outdoor season last weekend at the Washington and Lee Track Carnival in Lexington, Virginia. The team combined to win five total events.

Graduate student Cassandra Laios broke the school record with a hammer throw of 51.62 meters, finishing first out of 25 athletes from 10 other schools. Laois beat her previous record, set in 2017, of 51.30 meters.

First-year Spartan Kayla Reece followed up in third with a throw of 40.44 meters and second-year teammate Emma Hammelef placed sixth with 36.82 meters. Laois finished first at shot put with a distance of 12.65 meters and finished second at discus, recording 38.80 meters, just two meters short of first place. Second-year Spartan Eleanor Gaddy threw 10.62 meters, finishing fifth in shot put.

Third-year student Samantha Kelts claimed first in the triple jump with a mark of 10.81 meters.

Second-year student Grace Kemerer finished second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, with a time of 12:10.86. Other Spartan highlights include third place finishes for thirdyear student Abbey Waltz in pole vault, third-year runner Madeline Lindemann in 5,000-meter run and fourth-year thrower Shannon Carroll in the javelin throw.

For the men’s team, the squad of third-year Spartans Michael Hradesky, Jonathan Haling, Dominic Oddo and first-year teammate Juan Perez claimed first place in the 4x400 meter relay, crossing the finish line with a time of 3:24.03. Oddo also placed first in the long jump with a distance of 6.81 meters.

Third-year runner Grant McCarthy finished second with a time of 32:14.96 in the 10,000-meter run, and second-year teammate Dmytro Blundell’s time of 9:48.68 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase placed him second. Second-year Spartan Eric Rachita finished next in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 10:01.06. Third-year student Brian Holden finished third at javelin, scoring a mark of 41.76 meters.

Spartan athletes that were close to placing include third-year student Michael Klein with fourth in the 10,000-meter run and third-year runner David Hall with fifth in the 5,000-meter run. Hradesky finished fourth in the 800-meter race with a time of 1:57.14 and fifth in the 1,500-meter run.

The team will travel next to New Concord, Ohio to compete in the Amy Adams Memorial Invitational at Muskingum University from March 22-23.